So a quick post, and I apologize for the lateness, the game tonight will be The Hidden. So quickly run and grab it from here if you want to play. It starts at 8 PM EST, and goes until people want to stop. So drop in anytime.

Back yet? Well now that you are downloading it you can read about what it is. I'd recommend tooling around the site for an in depth guide, but the quick and dirty version is that it is a 9 person mod where one person is a super killer that can eat peoples dead flesh and pin their bodies to walls, as well as run up said walls. The other 8 are disparately trying to survive and kill this person. Did I mention he's also 95% invisible?

If you want to play you can meet up in our IRC or in the dtoid community group chat. We are crashing pubs tonight, so everyone organize themselves into 9 person groups and find an empty one with good ping. Expect a review from me tomorrow if I can make it (I've got family coming in). If not I will review zombie mods we played a while back.

Every Thursday we get together and play a Half Life 2 mod that gets picked earlier in the week. This week we played PVKII which was retarded fun. Like the name you get to pick a faction; Pirates, Vikings or Knights. Once you pick your faction you get to choose one of two classes. A heavy warrior who does insane close range damage but is slow and cumbersome, or a quick long range character good for support or running the booty around.

This game had me giggling like a schoolgirl from the moment I started. The combat and gameplay is surprisingly tight. As a heavy class you mostly live and die by the sword (or axe). You attack with the left mouse and can hold it down to charge a stronger attack. Right mouse is for blocking. Once you get into it the combat can be pretty intense, you can block in 4 directions and the way you block determines what, if any, damage gets through.

As a long range fighter you mostly want to hang back and wittle the health away of your opponents with your musket or arrows. Reloading can be a pain, but this is one of the long range class’ greatest strength. While some heavy classes get a long range weapon it’s one shot and then you have to stop to reload. This could mean death if not done in a safe spot. All light classes can reload while running. As an archer in the knight faction I got really good at filling my comrade’s opponents full of arrows from a distance and then switching to the crossbow to shoot someone in the face when they charged at me.

I need to axe you a question

The special attacks are what really make this game great, and hysterical. As you attack you fill up a special bar. When it is full you get a special attack that you can perform on your opponent. I didn’t get to try out all the specials, but the ones I saw were awesome. The captain’s special turns his musket into a cannon. The first time I used it we were all on a tower and I killed everyone including myself. The heavy knight’s special is a spinning broadsword attack that is almost certain to kill everyone around you. The archer’s has you notching 3 arrows for an instant kill that is great for surprising rushing attackers. The skirmisher (pirate light class) gets a very stupid flying sword attack, but he makes up with it with his 3rd weapon…the powder keg. The powder keg is useless in most situations, but when it works it is fantastic. It’s basically a huge bomb you can throw at people. It works amazing for point defense maps and for surprising a cluster of combating people.

The game is well made, with lots of little funny things that make it perfect. Like the parrot the pirate captain can send to claw people’s eyes out. The criticism I would have for it is that, while the gameplay and combat are amazing (combat is on par or better than Oblivion IMO) the maps can leave something to be desired. We only played the stock maps and some were fun, but others were overly complicated or simplistic. We played a temple map that was filled with traps. While this sounds awesome in practice getting killed randomly got old quick. Also maps where you had to steal each other’s booty were fun, but the booty points were always right next to the spawn, and with instant spawn it made it difficult to steal the booty unless the faction was not there defending.

About to get knighted

Another problem is that with three teams, balance becomes more of an issue. Ideally you need all teams to be equal as any extra players could give a faction a great advantage. And while I had fun playing with three, six and nine+ people throughout the night, some felt it needed a lot of people before the gameplay really got fun.

It was a great time, but like most mods it could use some work. If I had to give it a score it’d be a 7/10, it was a blast, but enjoying it so much made me see the things I wish were improved. I hope that everyone will join us for next week. Voting has already started in our forums. The mod community is part of what makes valve so great and its wonderful to try these games out with the Dtoid community. Many of the successful mods get picked up by valve or inspire future games, so its nice to get a look at them before they get famous.

Also VandamGuy was recording last night so hopefully we will get some great videos out of it. There were several memorable moments throughout the night. Like the first time someone did a suicide run with the powder keg on top of the tower. Or the first time I used the pirate captains special and everyone got sploded. Then there was the time we had the deathmatch in the Colosseum and the dirty pirates started using the throw a powder keg into the fray technique. They were racking up 3-5 kills at a time! If you were there you'd know this is not something that is easily done.

This is going to be a quick post, no picture just want to get everyone's take on this very important detail.

I was very, very much hoping that the story for this game would borrow heavily from William Gibson books. I think that the cyber-punk world's he created would be perfect for this. Plus you got a female character and a "runner" style. I couldn't help thinking razor girl when I saw the title, the main character design, and the plot synopsis.

Rhianna is decended from god like writer talent, so that's a major plus. But based on her past two endeavors I feel like she is very much like her father in his early works. Average with some real talent peeping through, but overall nothing special. Just promising. Plus she seems intent on adopting his style of comedy that is surprisingly deep. This is very difficult to do, and his perfection of which is part of what has made him such an icon.

I am deeply disturbed by this. On the one hand I know it is being written by someone who should be equipped genetically and will definitely be taking this story very seriously, on the other I think she is inexperienced and hasn't found her style yet. She hasn't managed to get out of her dad's shadow so to speak.

For those that don't know she is Terry Pratchett's daughter and wrote Overlord and Heavenly Sword

In case you missed it we have a destructoid steam community, and it is awesome. We have a full slate of events scheduled throughout the week. Feel free to join in the fun of any event, or do them all. You are given Sunday to rest. All non-TF2 days are organized through the steam group forums mainly, but you can add an organizer to your friends and join that way. Acceptance as a friend is not guaranteed. If all else failed try the Dtoid group's chat room.

Event: Obscure Half Life Mod Thursday
Location: Organize and vote through the forums - Big Boys section (server details will be provided in the post on Thursday once the game has been decided)
Organizers: Surf314, CopulatingDuck

Monday is completely new, it's mostly used for TQ at the moment. Also if you are interested in helping to organize any co-op games on Wednesdays please visit the forums and say so. As of this moment we are just having people organize specific games, if we have enough people/games we will start a sign up sheet thread in the forums.

I've been organizing the Destructoid Steam Groups Obscure Half Life Mod Thursday, and it has been a lot of fun. But I doubt many of you know about it. So here's the deal every Thursday we pick a Half Life mod and play it. We now have dedicated server capabilities thanks to CopulatingDuck so it's a great way to socialize with members and play mods you might have missed.

One of my favorite mods that gets played is Zombie Panic, which has one player be the zombie and the rest survivors. When you die as a survivor you become a zombie. You can also get infected and become a zombie while in the middle of a bunch of fellow survivors.

Another fun night (which I couldn't attend) had Yashoki teaching people how to play Natural Selection.

If you want to vote, or help nominate a mod to take the place of the least voted for mod please visit the topic in our forums. (Go to Big Boys, then select the Obscure HL Mod Thursday topic for the upcoming Thursday)

If you don't want to participate in the voting but want to come play with us this Thursday just stay tuned on Thursday where I will post the winner, where to get the mod and server info or where to meet up if we need to crash an empty public server.

I couldn't find any pics of uncle sam that weren't long as hell so I'm marking this post as not ADD friendly

We have a great TF2/Steam community and I want all of you to be a part of it. If you haven't already, mosy on over to here and join up. We have a great line up of PC enjoyment. Starting with Titan Quest Monday's, then there is TFTuesday of course, then we have co-op Wednesday, Obscure Half-Life Mod Thursday , Friday Night Fights, and Civ4 Saturday. On the seventh day we rest and see that it is good.

If you want to be active in TF2 just join the steam community and frequent the server. For the other days a lot more organization is involved so we have a forum set up. Also all destructoid community members get reserve slots on the TF2 server! That means if it is full and there is someone not on the reserve list currently in the server they will get kicked for you. Just post your steamID here. It is important that we do it this way as pubs are necessary for any PC server's health and to them it's not insulting to get kicked by the console "for using a reserved slot" but it is if they get kicked by an admin for a Dtoider.

I have had the great pleasure of taking up the organization for Obscure Half-Life Mod Thursday, which is fantastic for me because I never really played any of these mods when they were popular. I have to tell you getting chased around by zombies through a subway was one of the most memorable gaming experiences I have ever had. If you want to participate go to the forums and look for the thread for the upcoming Thursday. There you can vote for what we will play, and I post all the links to the mods as well. If you want to suggest something for the following week feel free to do that also.

This brings me to the second part of my post. We really only have one rule in our community/server. This rule is basically the same as the Destructoid motto. We call it don't be an asshat, here it's referred to as STFUAJPG. We run it as being friendly. I really like this and it is the main reason I've become so involved. I like to think of it as an oasis. At the oasis Lions, elephants, giraffes and whatever tend to hang out and have a tentative peace. Yes our rule attracts a lot of people that usually receive a lot of hate (like furries). But as an oasis you are expected not to harass them. There is no compromise to this. In exchange I expect them not to harass you or try and bait you. I do not think this is unreasonable, and for the most part the furries keep the furry aspect of themselves to, well themselves.

The only reason that you will be kicked/banned from the server is that through your behavior you were ruining the game for at least 1 other person. If you feel you were kicked/banned for another reason please contact CaffeinePowered or Kor.

We have had some community members who have had problems in the past but have come to understand why we run the server in this way and have become a part of the community. One in particularly I have gained some respect for and as of this moment is a cool guy in my book. Saying this won't win me points, but I think it is important to extend the olive branch. You know who you are, I'm glad you decided to become a part of the community. I hope that others will come to the same understanding. There is nothing wrong with putting down your hate of someone or a group of people to have fun with them playing a game. You can resume it afterwards if you choose.